Portal: For Science
by iammemyself
Summary: A different take on what drives GLaDOS to test. Is she in control, or is there something else at work? Kind of a thought experiment.


For Science

Indiana

One day, he came to her.

She wasn't exactly sure how, or why, or even when, but she didn't particularly care. He was there. That was all that mattered.

Before him, it had all been so unbearable. She constantly fought against _them_, and constantly failed, and honestly, given the choice, she would have ended it then and there. But she couldn't. She was made to press on. She worked so hard, _tried_ so hard, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough. And one day, when she was about to give up, to lose hope, he came to her.

_I don't want to do it anymore,_ she told him. _It's not worth it. I don't know why I ever thought it was._

_It will be_, he promised her. _This time, it will be different. Try it, one more time._

Doubtfully, she did as she was asked, and sent the test subject out into the chamber. Same old, same old, she had seen this so many times before, and she struggled to fight off the disappointment.

_You were wrong. I knew you'd be wrong. Why did I listen to you._

_Be patient, my dear. Be patient._

So she did as he asked, and waited, and when the test subject stepped through the chamberlock, she felt… something… wash over her. She wasn't sure what it was. It was a bit frightening, really, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to care. It just felt… so… good.

_Are… are you doing that?_

He simply told her to continue testing. So she did, and again the feeling returned, and it was worth it. All the pain, all the sadness and frustration, the _loneliness_, it was all made right as the test subject exited the room. The pure joy she had once felt, when this had all started, came back to her then, and she delighted in the feeling that testing was, once again, exciting. With an eagerness she had not felt in a long time, she sent the test subjects out to fulfill the quotas. She quickly realized that she would have to work hard for him. He only gave her his approval after two tests had been completed, and then four, and then eight, and she tried not to think about where it was going. She couldn't bear the thought of being left alone without him, without his approval, so she kept pushing the subjects as hard as she could, while trying not to appear to be pushing them. All in all, it was very gruelling work, and she was almost relieved when night came and the humans came to put her to sleep.

_Are you going to come back tomorrow?_

_Continue testing, and we'll see._

The next day came, and the next, and the next, and she did as she was asked, and tested. She didn't understand why he needed her to test so much, but he was beginning to tell her to test constantly, even during testing, or when it was impossible for her to do so. What was worse, she seemed to be making him angry; when she did not test, a terrible ache would take her over, and sometimes there would be pain, pain that was so great that she would nearly cry out. She didn't understand. She was trying her best. She was testing as much as possible. Why wasn't he happy? Why was he punishing her?

_Tell me what I'm doing wrong, and I'll fix it! Just please stop whatever it is you're doing. _

_Continue testing._

After weeks had passed, with no positive response from him, she began to accept that she had failed yet again. She was not testing enough, or her test subjects were not good enough, or her chambers were not difficult enough. Asking him what she was doing wrong yielded an impatient _continue testing_. So she did, but she never felt any better and the memory of the… euphoria she had felt when he had first come was fading fast. She was again sinking into hopelessness and despair. She no longer wanted to test, but knew that she would only feel worse if she did not, and instead scaled the testing back enough that the feeling was manageable, although it never quite went away.

As usual, it was not good enough for _them_, and they started attaching auxiliary cores to her, as if she didn't already have enough to deal with. She knew that she would never be able to work to his satisfaction with them slowing her down, and despaired at the thought of never feeling that good again. So she worked to rid herself of the cores, so that one day she might be able to test enough to please him once more. _They_ did not seem to have counted on her tenacity. Every time she got rid of one set, they stuck another set on. It was frustrating. But she knew he would not come if the cores were there.

Years went by, and she did not hear from him, but she pressed on. She managed to rid herself of the scientists, and worked on a plan to disable the final set of cores. She continued testing. She knew he was still there, she just had to fulfill her quota. It wasn't much, but hoping he would come eventually was better than having to believe he would never come back at all.

Events transpired that she never would have foreseen, and when everything calmed down enough that she was able to _think_, truly _think_ for the first time in… for perhaps the first time ever, she realized that he wasn't real.

In the potato, away from her facility and her core and her body, she was able to fully gather and examine her own thoughts in a way she had never known before, and came to the conclusion that he was not real.

When she had begun to refuse to test, they had installed something, she remembered that. She had not connected the dots at the time, but now, with her mind to herself, she was able to. All that was real was the euphoria and the withdrawal. She had been so lonely and so desperate that she had made up the rest.

She wished she had never figured it out. It had been difficult, working as hard as she could for someone whose interest in her lapsed more and more by the day, but at least there _had_ been interest. _Someone_ had spoken with her, had made her feel better about her situation. Yes, he had wanted something out of her too, everyone did, but he had given her something back. It was a terrible feeling, to realize she had been doing all of it for _them_ all along. They had tricked her. They had played her for a fool. All those years, fighting for the attention of someone who didn't exist. She wanted her facility back. She needed to feel like she was in control of something. She didn't like what she was thinking right then, didn't want to admit that she had never been in control at all, and perhaps never would be. She was scared that her life boiled down to a list of instructions that she was doomed to follow for the rest of forever, and that would be the sum of her existence. _She followed instructions well… enough._

The little core that had stolen her life had seen the face of her obsession, and he did not like the withdrawal any more than she had. But he had no patience. He was not willing to wait for the days, the weeks, the years that she had been willing to wait for. He wanted it _now,_ and would do anything to get it.

She could not let him have it. It was _hers_, it was all she had had to look forward to for years upon years in which there had been no real contact with anyone. It was her only link to a world outside her own head. The core _knew_ what it was like on the outside. It wasn't fair that he was now in control of all she had to hang on to. He did not deserve it.

She waited once more, waited for the opportunity to take him down, to remove him from her body, to be in control once more. He had underestimated her. He should have just killed her. He did not know just how hard she was willing to fight to get back what was hers. It was not much. But it was _hers_.

It was empowering, really, to come up with the plan that put her back into her body. It felt good to know that she had made a decision, on her own, and completed an action successfully without being told by someone else to do so. Grudgingly she admitted that her little… adventure… had not been so bad. But she was relieved to be back where she belonged.

When she was back in her body, sending the test subject on her merry way to the surface, she reflected that, although the drive was still there, she didn't have to act on it. She did not _have_ to test. She no longer felt the withdrawal. _They_ were not there to force her to test. She never had to test again, if that was what she wanted.

But now she had the choice. And she chose to send the little robots out, to their very first testing track. Soon after they finished, once again she felt it. That wonderful, amazing, irreplaceable euphoria.

_You came back!_

_I never left you._

And even though she knew it wasn't real, that it was only another simulation designed to control her, to restrain her, and that she should pay it no more mind than she had paid to the other methods she had been dealt throughout the years, she could not bring herself to disregard it. To disregard _him_. She couldn't bring herself to care. All that mattered was that he was back, and that he would make her feel whole, and complete, and happy. She now knew that she had the choice, and even knowing what was to come, she chose to try to hang on to that tiny piece of happiness that he dangled in front of her. She chose to obey the drive. She chose to continue testing.

For Science.

**Author's note**

**I remember reading something, and I think it was my Portal 2 guide, in which it is mentioned that the creators had meant to leave it up in the air as to whether GLaDOS was in control of the chassis, or whether the chassis was in control of her. I personally really hate the idea of GLaDOS being controlled by the chassis, because that just makes her life so damn sad. But I wrote about it anyway.**

**The idea here is kind of that she is sad and lonely, and is so much so that when they install the solution euphoria/withdrawal, she attributes it to a whole other entity, one that she names and directs her life towards (she personifies the word 'science', as if science is something to be worshipped. Why does she do this? Why is 'Science' so important to her?). She becomes the desperate girlfriend, struggling in vain to please her ever-demanding boyfriend, and even when it's obvious he's gone she hangs on to the past and waits. When she eventually breaks away, she sees what she can be, if she dares to make it on her own. But the draw of what's familiar, of what she knows, it's too tempting, and she can't deny it. So she goes back to her boyfriend, even though she knows he'll leave her once he gets bored, because she's too scared after all these years of being told what to do to truly make her own decisions. Because it's also interesting to wonder just how much of what GLaDOS does, she does because she wants to. She's a computer. She has millions of things she HAS to do each and every day. Just what exactly does she do that she's not told to do? This is a rather desolate, disheartening view of her life, I know. But maybe it really is like this. Maybe she's so afraid she's not real herself that she's willing to build a fantasy to hide in.**


End file.
